


Death and Disaster

by OnceABlueMoon



Category: Dororo (Anime 2019)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Angst, Character Death, Disasters, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Natural Disasters, Podfic Welcome, Tahomaru kills Hyakkimaru and the disasters happen anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27702841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceABlueMoon/pseuds/OnceABlueMoon
Summary: It’s been a day since Tahomaru left his older brother’s corpse to rot at the foot of a timber wall inhabited by a demon.It’s been a day when the disasters start.
Relationships: Hyakkimaru & Tahomaru (Dororo), Tahomaru & His People
Comments: 1
Kudos: 28





	Death and Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Dororo.

It’s been a day since Tahomaru left his older brother’s corpse to rot at the foot of a timber wall inhabited by a demon. It’s been a day when the disasters start.

The landslides get worse, to the point where the foundation of the castle starts to waver and collapse. This is a great loss, for there is much wealth in a castle, but compared to the other disasters it’s mild. After all, a lord can always rebuild a castle. A famine, on the other hand? People who starve to death aren’t so easy to replace.

No rain comes and the rice paddies dry up, which is a disaster, until they realize that their drinking water supply is _also_ shrinking, which is a far greater disaster. At least they have stores of grain which they can sparsely pass out to the people, which Tahomaru does, often personally, but with even the lakes drying up, they have no stores of water. Some of the truly desperate try to drink seawater, unable to wait for water to come in through trade. Those are the ones that die first. There are plenty of others, though, that go before the Tahomaru finally manages to get water to his people. They are literally in the streets, only moving to crawl to a shadowed spot to escape from the burning sun, too exhausted to try anything more. When they die, they die face up, mouth open, as if begging the sky to release water onto their parched tongues. The sight is gruesome but has no place in Tahomaru’s nightmares.

The people haunt him by day, his brother haunts him at night.

There is war on all sides, Tahomaru’s father is away to fight them at all times, and it’s horrid. Not just because of war- no, Tahomaru would love to prove himself in battle, if only battle did not stop the _trade._ It’s so very important because they need the water. It’s slow going and never enough, but what trade they do get, he gratefully throws gold at, though he knows the coffers are slimming.

He sleeps little, but when he does, they’re all bad dreams.

* * *

Unseeing glass eyes stare out of a moon-pale face. The contrast with the crimson blood would be beautiful if not for the wound it comes from, ugly, jagged and gaping on his snow-white throat. In combination with the dark hair pooling around it, the features remind Tahomaru far too much of his mother, his heartbeat like war drums in his ears just at the thought of her looking like this.

This isn’t his noble mother, Daigo’s magnificent Nui no Kata, though. This fine-featured boy is his brother, the shade of death upon him, the wet sound of his last breath resounding. The wound in his throat moves with it, a grotesque horror Tahomaru can’t quite process in a movement so small.

There’s a dripping sound and Tahomaru looks down only for his eyes to widen at the bloody swords in his hands. Drip-drop. Drip-drip-drop. Down, the blood goes. Into a pool, both below the sword and flowing out of Hyakkimaru’s throat.

Hyakkimaru’s skin greys, and suddenly, Tahomaru knows without a doubt that he’s dead now. Is he in Hell, like the demons Father sold him to used to be? Has he ascended, even though he has killed so many?

There is a tragedy to this, he thinks somewhere far away, a certain irony to it too. After all, the blood dripping from his sword, the blood on Hyakkimaru’s throat, the blood that is now on Tahomaru’s hands… It is the blood they share.

This is when the dream turns away from real events. Caterpillars start to crawl between Hyakkimaru’s toes. It’s easy to see, because he wears no shoes, unlike Tahomaru who has never spent a day with his feet in the open. They crawl up his body, worms, insects, all matter of vermin, and start slowly devouring him. They’re purple, green, some even a sickly yellow or a bright, poisonous red. They’re the colour of disease, of death, of the end.

Tahomaru feels like throwing up, bile gathering at the back of his throat.

Just as he’s about to empty his stomach right next to his brother’s rotting corpse, he gasps awake. His sleeping yukata clings to his body, drenched in sweat, and he shivers. He’s cold, oh-so cold, his breathing fast, but he can’t wait for it to even out because the bile is still rising, rising and he rushes for the pot in the corner of the room.

He doesn’t make it. He retches on the rich wooden floor.

When he sobs into his sleeves afterwards, he feels disgusting in more than one sense.

He wants his mother. He wants his mother _so badly,_ but Father imprisoned her after she went crazy when Hyakkimaru died.

…Does he care, though? Father’s word is law, but Father’s choices have also led them to this point, so he wipes his dirty mouth with his sleeves, and throws open the doors of his sleeping quarters.

It’s about time he gets some answers.

* * *

‘’What do you mean, the deal is off?’’ Tahomaru whispers, soft and afraid.

His mother looks at him, her eyes full of tears. ‘’The deal is off because only the limbs of a living human can provide the proper power to a demon. As long as the human lives, the organ they have can be devoured over and over and over- your brother was quite literally being devoured alive for every second he lived. Day after day after day. But once dead… Well, the demons may still be loose, but their power is diminished.’’

Tahomaru shakes his head. ‘’It can’t be.’’

Nui no Kata’s beautiful face twists into a pained grimace, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. ‘’It is so, and it was so, and it will forever be so because now the accumulated disasters of the last sixteen years will be upon us.’’

‘’No,’’ Tahomaru breathes, ‘’No, you’re _lying._ You have to be!’’

Before she can answer, he runs. Runs, like the coward he is. Runs, like his brother is on his heels, chasing him with a sword. Runs, like it will somehow enable him to outrun his guilt.

What should he have done? Imprisoned Hyakkimaru so he couldn’t kill demons anymore? It wouldn’t have worked, for his brother was too strong. Letting him go free hadn’t been an option either, because that would let disaster come to Tahomaru’s people. Killing Hyakkimaru had been the best option. The _only_ option.

And still, here Tahomaru is, in what is quickly starting to look like the ashes of the Daigo clan.

A servant rushes up to him just as Tahomaru enters his room.

‘’Young master, the vermin got into the grain stores!’’

Startled, Tahomaru thinks back on his nightmare from before, in which Hyakkimaru was devoured by the vermin. Was it a premonition? Or was it simple common sense, that with the disasters happening the next would also easily come?

He isn’t sure. It doesn’t matter anyway, not when the only thing that matters is saving their people. Tahomaru isn’t sure he can, anymore, even though his brother's death, or perhaps _because_ he is.

He waves the servant away, and only in Hyogo and Mutsu’s presence does he finally breaks down. He cries and cries and cries, silently so no one behind the doors will hear. It’s ugly and undignified and all the things Father taught him to never be.

It’s real.

It’s been days since Tahomaru left his older brother’s corpse to rot at the foot of a timber wall inhabited by a demon. It’s been days since the disasters started.

Tahomaru grieves, for his brother and the people both.


End file.
